The Monument is a famous Doric column situated
nearby the equally iconic London Bridge in England’s historical city of London.
This 202-foot stone column features a striking figure of a flaming golden orb, and both this
high structure and the orb serve to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666, one of the greatest
tragedies in the history of London.
The Monument stands at a site located between Fish Street Hill and Monument Street, which
is 202 feet away from the bakery of one Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane.
This humble shop of the king’s baker was where the Great Fire started on the 2nd day
of September in 1666, and it ended up setting ablaze to London’s magnificent 17th-century
skyline.
Unbeknownst to a lot of people, The Monument to the Great Fire of London was constructed
to serve another purpose.
Believe it or not, the column itself was designed to function as a colossal zenith telescope,
Aside from that, it housed a hidden laboratory inside it where various scientific experiments
were supposedly conducted.
While the name of renowned architect Sir Christopher Wren is what is inscribed on a plaque attached
to the column’s base, The Monument was originally designed by Robert Hooke.
Dubbed as England’s Leonardo da Vinci and celebrated during his time as the world’s
greatest mechanic, Hook is credited for a lot of scientific achievements.
Not only did he build the first known reflecting telescope, he was also responsible for inventing
the universal joint, which is commonly used in motor vehicles.
He was also the one who came up with Hooke’s law of elasticity and the originator of the
term “cell” in referring to biological life’s most basic unit.
His other mechanical inventions include the iris diaphragm and the balance wheel – items
used in cameras and watches, respectively.
Though he gained renown for being a man of science, Hooke also dabbled in architecture,
tasked with designing churches, hospitals and other civic structures.
One of the architectural structures he was appointed to design and build was The Monument,
which was meant to be a grand effort to immortalize the Great Fire.
However, at the time he was handed the project, Hooke was fixated on proving the scientific
and controversial supposition that it’s the earth that revolves around the sun and
not the other way around.
In the end, he saw no reason why the two objectives cannot be accomplished all in a single effort.
To Hooke, this meant building a structure that commemorated the Great Fire of London
but, at the same time, functioned as a very large and long telescope.
In order for Hooke to prove that the Earth did revolve around the Sun, it was important
for him to devise a way to track and measure the movement of various objects in space.
This meant being able to observe the shift or changes in the position of one celestial
object against the background of another.
Today, astronomers refer to this method as “astronomical parallax,” and it entails
partitioning the heavens in accordance to an imaginary face of a clock.
The hands of the clock will be used to determine how far a particular celestial object is.
Observing this parallax cannot be done using only the naked eye, which was why Hooke needed
to build a huge telescope to magnify his view of the heavens.
To realize his vision of building a zenith telescope, it was imperative for Hooke that
The Monument be a stable and sturdy structure.
He intended for the monument to be made of only the finest Portland stone and his plans
required 28,196 cubic feet of these stones.
Constructing the entire thing took around six years to complete and there were certainly
many bumps along the way.
One problem that arose while building The Monument was that the Portland stone – along
with other building stones – was always in short supply after the Great Fire destroyed
so many properties.
The king, Charles II, thought it prudent to regulate the transportation of these rocks
from the Isle of Portland, and he consequently issued a proclamation that everything involving
Portland stone must first be consulted with Sir Christopher Wren, the royally-appointed
architect of the project.
Another issue that almost ruined Hooke’s plans for The Monument was the suggestion
that a statue of the king should be placed on top of the column.
Fortunately, the King refused to have a depiction of himself be the centerpiece of the monument
as it might give the public the idea that he was to blame for the fire.
In the end, Hooke managed to build The Monument in the way that he originally pictured it,
finishing it in 1677.
Since the column of The Monument doubled as a telescope, Hooke equipped the structure
with two giant lenses which were aligned with each other and were 200 feet apart.
He planned to view the heavens using the telescope from an underground laboratory.
Hooke had big ambitions for The Monument when it comes to conducting various scientific
experiments.
Unfortunately, utilizing The Monument as a telescope proved incredibly difficult in real
life.
For one, it was hard to affix the giant lenses to the telescope.
What’s worse is that the location of The Monument is far from ideal when you’re doing
experiments that are highly sensitive to environmental factors.
Given that the structure was close to a bustling street that served as a main passageway to
London Bridge, strong vibrations from heavy traffic made it impossible to record accurate
measurements.
Eventually, Hooke knew he had to abandon his plans to use the building as a telescope.
It would take years and a German astronomer named Friedrich Bassel before parallax was
finally discovered in 1838.
Similar to what Hooke had in mind, Bassel observed the movement of objects in space,
particularly that of the star 61 Cygni.
The value of The Monument in scientific research, however, did not end with its failure to properly
function as a gigantic telescope.
During the 17th century, high-rise structures were a rarity, and before The Monument was
built, Hooke had to conduct his physics experiments which required height from the top of other
tall structures like the Westminster Abbey.
When he finished the column, it was like he had a huge laboratory all to himself where
he could test all the theories he wanted to involving height or altitude.
It was in 1678 when Hooke’s laboratory was finally able to facilitate a successful physics
experiment.